According to PRT standard procedure, Panacea was never supposed to be left alone with a villain.
But Rakshasa was restrained, sedated, and barely conscious, so when the PRT agent on duty had asked if he could step outside for a moment to take a call, Amy hadn't given it a second thought.
Amy spared another glance at the villain. The heavy restraints keeping her bound to the bed would be enough to hold Lung, but Rakshasa wasn't in any state to make a breakout attempt at all. The worst of the damage had been cleared, enough to save her life: removing the swelling in her throat, clearing the fluid from her lungs, stabilizing her heart arrhythmia and her blood oxygen levels. As for everything else? She didn't care to treat villains.
Part of her had considered just letting Rakshasa die when they wheeled her in. She was nearly dead anyway, it wouldn't be that hard to say they were too late, and then Brockton Bay would be down a villain. But she hadn't, because she was Panacea - she couldn't make a mistake, couldn't let someone die, not even a villain, because how long would it be before she started letting other people die too? The elderly, who'd die naturally soon enough? People with cancer, which had a nasty tendency to come back even when she cleared all the tumors and abnormal cell growth? What if she started trading their lives for others?
Amy took a deep breath, giving another look to the heavy set of restraints binding Rakshasa to the bed. Not even Lung could break out of that. Throw in all the hives, and she was definitely not going to enjoy a pleasant night.
(If she felt more than a little sadistic satisfaction at seeing one of the worst villains in the Bay restrained and covered in hives, well, that was fine, right? She was a villain, after all.)
Honestly, Amy didn't even know why she was still here. Rakshasa was stable, they could move her to PRT custody whenever they wanted, and now that she was up she could (should) heal some other patients. Because what would people say if they knew she just got here, healed a villain, and left, when there could be others in this same building dying because she wasn't there?
A choked noise from the vicinity of the bed broke her chain of thought, and she spared another glance in that direction. Rakshasa was unmasked, not that there was much to see right now - her face was swollen, particularly the lips, and her cheeks were redder than Santa on Christmas. Her breath was still coming out in wheezes, but she was stable, and that was what mattered. The villain's eyes were open now - as open as they could be, given all the swelling - and there was a certain desperation in Rakshasa's gaze as she met Amy's eyes.
"Oh, shut up," Amy muttered. "You'll live."
"'Me... lia…"
Panacea ignored her.
"Marquis… said… look out for you… Sorry… didn't…" Each word was spoken with great difficulty, through lips that didn't particularly want to move but were being forced in order to give a message of great import. Amy's heart pounded in her chest as the words finally registered, and her blood ran cold.
It was at that moment that the PRT agent returned.
"Sorry about that, Miss Dallon. Everything alright in here?" he asked.
"She'll be fine," Amy had forced out, before sprinting away to the nearest nurses' bathroom to have herself a nice panic attack.
It was only after she'd checked that nobody else was in there and locked herself in a stall that she finally let the desperate, choked laugh escape her. Fumbling under her costume for the little pouch of provisions, Amy located her pack of smokes and a lighter. With hands far shakier than normal, she grabbed a cigarette and managed to light it. Normally she was too strict with herself to smoke inside - in a hospital, Amy, what's wrong with you, came a voice that sounded far too much like Carol's - but this was a special circumstance.
Marquis. Marquis. One of the monsters from the Bad Old Days. People talked about him in the same breath as Allfather and the Butcher. And he wanted Rakshasa to look out for her.
He's your-
Amy cut the thought off before it could take root. It wasn't true, it couldn't be.
Amy spent another two hours healing, doing her best not to think, before the doctors began to not-so-subtly suggest that she go home and catch some sleep. She ignored them for another hour until the suggestions turned into demands, and she finally acquiesced. They all knew that she would be back tomorrow (or was it today? Amy couldn't even remember anymore).
The silent walk home from the hospital was always the worst part of her day. It was always wonderful when Vicky flew her, but when she was alone, with nothing but her thoughts as company? Terrible.
Amy glanced down every alley she passed, challenging every shadowy figure she saw with her gaze. She almost hoped someone would try to mug her, if only to give her an outlet for some of this frustration, but she was Panacea, healer extraordinaire, and no one was stupid enough or intoxicated enough to put a knife to her back.
Nobody was up when she made it home, not even Mark, whose depression sometimes kept him up at odd hours. It saved her from having to act like everything was fine after that bombshell. At the sight of her own bed, all the exhaustion she'd been holding back came flooding into her, and it became a trial to keep her eyes open.
Tomorrow.
She'd deal with this tomorrow.
The dream started with a face.
It was a man's face, distantly familiar, a face she loved. The dream-man's features refused to solidify, save for the long strands of hair falling across his face, in front of his warm eyes.
There are bad people coming, Amelia. You're going to hide in here, and be very, very quiet.
But what about you?
Daddy is strong, remember? Don't you worry about me. I'll come get you when it's safe.
The words weren't really words, more like impressions and ideas, dredged from some long-forgotten corner of her mind.
The door closed, leaving her in the darkness. Behind her, the shadows seemed to leap up, reaching out with wicked claws to pull her into the abyss. Soon enough, the noises started: shattering glass, shouting, bones breaking, skin tearing.
Amy clutched the pillow tighter against her chest, flinching at every flash of light that passed through the cracks at the door. The fighting got closer, and they were hurting her Daddy, and…!
Amelia, meet the Brockton Bay Brigade. They're going to take care of you.
No! I want to stay with Ara!
Ara was nice. They had tea parties together, and she would do Amy's hair. Whenever she stayed with Ara, Daddy always came back to get her.
You can't stay with Ara.
Why not?!
But the grown-ups had made up their mind. They took her away from her Daddy, and then the two ladies argued. Neither of them wanted her, so why would they take her away?!
And then another familiar face arrived, and Amy's heart leapt as the newcomer joined in the argument.
There's paperwork somewhere. I'm supposed to take care of her. Please.
Do you even have your own house? A high school degree? A job, outside of villainy?
Forget about her, and go join the Wards. It's not too late for you to make something out of your life.
The third figure approached. She knelt down in front of her, and pulled her into a hug.
I can't stay with you, Amelia, but I'll try my best to look out for you. Don't forget me, okay?
The next morning at breakfast, the news had already began to circulate the news of Rakshasa's and Lung's captures. By the time Amy came downstairs (having not quite managed to hide the dark circles under her eyes during her morning ablutions) Vicky was talking nonstop about the capture and what it meant for Brockton Bay, in usual Vicky fashion
"When was the last time anyone managed to Cage a gang leader, anyways? Marquis?" Vicky asked. "How long until we make a move on Kaiser's ugly nazi butt?"
Carol sent a sharp glance in Amy's direction, then very pointedly did not answer, putting another forkful of hash browns in her mouth.
"And it was Incarnate who did it, too! She's, like, definitely the coolest on the Protectorate team. Armsy did great with Lung, I guess, but you know how he gets anytime anyone tries anything fun."
Amy felt a sudden surge of jealousy, and she couldn't stop herself from speaking with more than a little venom. "It wasn't Incarnate, unless she's somehow developed bug powers in the past 24 hours."
"Huh," Vicky mused, doing that thing where she twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "'Unknown takes out ABB cape' would've made for a great headline. Wonder why they're not showing anything about that? Think it was a villain who did it? Actually, you were there with Rakshasa, right? Did she say anything?"
Amy shrugged noncommittally, sinking back down into her chair at the reminder of what Rakshasa did say. After a few long moments of deliberation, she spoke. "Mom, is there any chance I could stay home today?"
"Having a late night isn't enough of a reason to stay home from school," Carol answered icily.
"I really am feeling awful," Amy said, completely truthfully.
"If you're sick, I'd better not hear you were at the hospital later," she warned.
The thought of avoiding the hospital sent a fresh wave of guilt surging through her, more because of the relief she felt at taking a day off than anything else. But her story was set, and to go back on it now, to admit to lying, was more than she could handle right now.
As she made her way back upstairs after breakfast, she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see Vicky looking at her. "You alright?" The concern in Victoria's voice made Amy's heart clench.
"I'll be fine," Amy answered, and hoped with all her heart that it was the truth.
It was a dream. Just a dream, a figment of her subconscious, stirred up by what Rakshasa told her as her brain tried to construct a narrative to fit. If it was real, then why hadn't she remembered it until now?
The door had barely shut behind Carol when Amy got out of bed and grabbed her laptop. Booting it up, Amy immediately googled "Marquis capture." The first hits were the usual cape fandom sites, but one of them happened to have the date. August 2001, just a few months before she was adopted, and from there she was able to check the Brockton Times' online archive for something more tangible than nerds arguing on the internet. There was just a short blurb and a picture in the newspaper's web archives. Looked like they never got around to digitizing the whole thing, but what she saw there was more than enough.
August 15th, 2001
BROCKTON BAY BRIGADE CAPTURES MARQUIS!
After a raid on the supervillain's headquarters, the Brockton Bay Brigade took Marquis into custody. He is currently awaiting trial, and experts believe there is a strong likelihood of a life sentence to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center, known as the Birdcage.
And the mugshot accompanying the blurb was so devastatingly familiar that Amy's heart almost stopped.
She closed the laptop, falling back onto her bed and burying her face in a pillow. So, that was it, then. It was true.
Now, only one question remained.
What was she going to do about it?
